2014 Draft Watch: The Odyssey

By Kate Bennert, WNBA.com

Last week, the NCAA finally entered conference play and we saw movement in the rankings. Among them, No. 7 Baylor (formerly No. 9), won their first two conference games over Kansas and Kansas State while No. 14 Baylor bought down Iowa and moved up from the No. 15 spot. Those wins can largely be attributed to the performances of Odyssey Sims for Baylor and Maggie Lucas with Penn State. Sims put up 30 points (breaking the Baylor record for career 3-pointers in the process) against Kansas and that was after her 40-point performance against Kansas State the game before. Meanwhile, Maggie Lucas scored 27 points against No. 22 Iowa, drilling 5 3-pointers.

Odyssey Sims (Baylor)

After her 70-point conference start, Odyssey was named espnW’s Senior of the Week. She is the first player to win the weekly honor twice. Sims is now averaging 30 points per game plus a solid four assists and four rebounds. When we first highlighted Odyssey on Draft Watch, Baylor was only eight games into the season and Sims was averaging 30 points per game. Today, Baylor is 12-1 and she has shown no signs of slowing down.

According to ESPN, “Sims is averaging nearly one-third of Baylor's points this season, has taken 27 percent of the Lady Bears' shots from the floor and 30 percent of their free throw attempts.” Which speaks more than volumes for her role on one of the league’s strongest teams.

Sims and the Lady Bears take on No. 1 Connecticut on January 13.

Maggie Lucas (Penn State)

Maggie Lucas’s nickname is Machine Gun Maggie. That’s almost all I need to say about Maggie Lucas except that maybe you should watch this video. The 5’ 10” shooting guard was the Big Ten player of the year last season and is this season averaging 21 points per game, which puts her at No. 11 on the list of top senior scorers in in women’s college basketball this year. Last month she scored her 2000th career point at Penn State.

Video

Last week, Lauren Hill of Mount St. Joseph University courageously took the floor for her first college game, refusing to let an inoperable brain tumor keep her from achieving her dream – and WNBA stars Elena Delle Donne and Tamika Catchings were on hand to lend their support.